Sometimes we trip into things. Sometimes an innocent remark can explain the scars of a career changing decision no one really wants to talk about.

Except for those who benefit from it most.

"I can't tell you how excited we are to have Brent Venables," Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said.

He may be the only one outside the state of South Carolina.

Venables left Oklahoma after 13 seasons with the Sooners and close friend Bob Stoops. He's now coordinating Clemson's defense—a unit that, at last glance, gave up 70 points to West Virginia in the Orange Bowl.

He was hired by Swinney to build a defense that's fast, aggressive, active and smart. A lot like those OU defenses of the past. In other words, the exact opposite of what Clemson looked like on the field last January. The plan, Venables, said, is more than Xs and Os.

Venables was talking about his players adjusting to his new system. He just as easily could have been talking about his move from Oklahoma.

For years schools had tried to pry him away from Norman to do what he did so well under Stoops. But when your boss is your close friend, when your employer pays you head coach money, when your family loves their home, why make a lateral move?

Here's why: Mike Stoops came back to Oklahoma. And family won out— Bob Stoops' family.

Mike Stoops was fired midseason last year as head coach of Arizona, and as soon as it happened, the inevitable was set in motion. He would return to Norman to coach the defense; the same job he held until he left for Arizona after the 2003 season.

This, of course, meant Venables would give up his role of calling the defense. Oklahoma tried to keep him; offered him more money, offered to make him co-coordinator with Mike Stoops—with the understanding that it would be a combination of minds making the calls.

"Like we always have done it," Bob Stoops said.

Would Mike Stoops have had final say; would he have been the one making critical play calls; would he be the man getting credit if the OU defense played even better than it has of late? Of course he would.

So if you're Venables, and the annual dance of schools calling and offering jobs started again last December—this time West Virginia, Tennessee and Clemson among them—it suddenly becomes more intriguing to listen.

Venables knew nothing about Swinney or the Tigers' personnel or the ACC. It's not like he was trying to get out of town. But one thing was clear: If he wanted to run his own show, he could no longer stay in Norman.

"It was a gut-wrenching process," Venables admits.

And he couldn't have found a more fitting landing point. Clemson's defense has been awful; the program relied too much on elite offensive skill players for years.

Even when the Tigers broke through last season and won their first ACC title since 1991, they did it despite finishing 71st in the nation in total defense—and 81st in scoring defense. That's not counting play after play of guys not lining up right or ready, taking bad angles and practicing poor fundamentals.

It was only a matter of time before someone embarrassed Clemson. West Virginia just did it on a larger stage.

But if that's what it took to get one of the game's best defensive coordinators out of his comfort zone; if that's what it took for Venables to agree to a coordinator job at a school that interviewed him three years earlier for the head-coaching job Swinney eventually got, then so be it.

Venables and the Stoops brothers are still good friends, still talk all the time and still exchange ideas. That will never change.

Venables says he's as excited as he has ever been about coaching, and that this Clemson defense is not as far away from playing at a high level as it looked in South Florida last January. Swinney and his staff have proven to be elite recruiters, and have focused on the defense in the last two top 10 recruiting classes.

"He was pretty straight forward when he got here," Clemson defensive end Malliciah Goodman said. "There's one thing he said that stuck with me: there's always a way to get better."